by Tim Stead
It was signed by the Lady Sara Brough of Latter Fetch.
Well, the message was plain enough, and honest. He put the letter to one side and unwrapped the book. It was a finely made volume, bound in soft black leather with the title imprinted in silver. He read the title, opened the book and flicked through the heavy, cream tinted pages. It was a quality piece, for sure, and the penmanship was among the finest he had seen.
“Guardsman,” he said. “Take this man to the mess tents and see that he is well fed given wine to drink at my order, and you,” he turned to the messenger. “You may return to Latter Fetch and tell your Lady Sara that I have received her gift and that it pleased me. It shall come with me to Wolfguard.”
He watched them leave. It was fortuitous, he thought. He did not want to sleep and there was little else to do but brood and drink. This would be the perfect distraction. He could read the hours of darkness away. In all his time he could not recall having seen this title, so it would be something new, and he would look kindly indeed upon this Lady Sara if their paths ever crossed.
He settled back in his chair with the book balanced on his knee and turned to the first page.
57. The Champion
Skal was shaken roughly awake and for a moment he did not remember where he was. His hand found the hilt of his sword and he sat up. It came to him quickly. He was in his tent somewhere on the road to Telas Alt.
“You are needed, Lord Skal,” a voice said.
It was still dark. The light above him resolved itself into a lamp, and the face beside the lamp was Captain Emmar’s. Skal blinked and rubbed the sleep from his eyes with one hand. He was still half in a dream.
“Captain Emmar?”
“The queen needs you,” the captain said.
That was enough to get Skal moving. He pulled on his boots and buckled his sword belt as quickly as he could, pushing the heaviness of sleep away. His mouth felt like he’d been eating dirt, and he was vaguely annoyed with Emmar. The man could have had the courtesy to bring him a hot drink, at least. When he was dressed he poured a cup of cold water from a jug and swallowed it down, splashed a little on his face and tried to smooth down his unruly hair.
Once outside they moved quickly through the camp, navigating through the tents by the light of Emmar’s lamp and the occasional glow from dying fires and the few other lamps that remained lit. The camp was asleep. Skal could see the stars, but the night was not cold. It was truly summer now. The clean air finally woke him completely, and he wondered what was happening.
They arrived at Hestia’s tent to find it brightly lit and a small gathering outside. Skal got a mixed reception of looks from the Telans. Some looked at him with hope and others with resentment. These were the same men who had walked with Hestia, the nobility and the officers of her army.
“What’s going on?” he asked Emmar.
The Telan shook his head. “Go in,” he said.
Skal went in. There were three people in the tent. One was Hestia, her back turned to the entrance, another was one of the lords that had been with her at Terresh’s burning, and the third he did not know, but he recognised the type. He was a young man, lean and poised, and he eyed Skal with a look that Skal had seen before, an appraising look, a look that measured him.
“Queen Hestia, you summoned me?”
She turned. Skal could see anger on her face, but it was not directed at him. Her expression softened to concern as soon as she saw him.
“Lord Skal,” she said. “Will you be my champion?”
Skal hesitated. It was a startlingly direct request, but he did not really want to get involved in Telan politics. “What is the issue?” he asked.
The Telan lord sniggered ungraciously, thinking perhaps that his reluctance decided the issue, and he saw the young man smile.
“This man challenges my claim to the Lion Throne,” she said, indicating the lord with a flick of her hand. Skal could see now that she was afraid. It was well hidden, but her eyes were wide, her tone was controlled, and there was tension beneath it. “To defend my right I must either fight him, or my champion must fight his champion.”
And if you fight him you will be killed, Skal thought.
“And the contest is to the death?” he asked, knowing the answer. These were Telans, after all.
“It is,” the nameless lord confirmed. “And the death of both,” he added.
Both. If he failed he would be dead and Hestia would be dead. “Is there no Telan who will stand for you, Queen Hestia?” he asked.
“There are a dozen, Lord Skal, but none of them would survive an encounter with Dadano – he is Lord Crelian’s hired killer, an Avilian like yourself.”
Skal looked at the young man again. The younger son of a minor noble house, perhaps. A man who had been Avilian long enough to gain skill at fencing and taken that skill elsewhere to make his fortune. Dadano was a year or two older than Skal. His face was clean of scars, but not pretty despite that.
“Lord Crelian,” Skal addressed the older man. “What is your reason for opposing Queen Hestia’s claim?”
“Are you afraid to fight, colonel?” the man replied.
“No,” he replied. “We need all the men we have to kill Seth Yarra, and I do not want to kill you unless I must. Your reason?”
For a moment there was doubt in the lord’s eyes, but he spoke boldly to dispel it. “She is a woman. A woman has never held the Lion Throne, and none ever shall.”
Skal looked at him. That was it? For some reason the image of Sara Brough came to him, fighting tooth and nail against the bailiffs, and covered in blood after she had slain Elejine and nearly died of it. He thought of Sheyani, playing her pipes by the walls of Fal Verdan while arrows fell around her, and he thought of Passerina.
“I will be your champion, Queen Hestia,” he said. He was rewarded with a smile.
“Prepare the ground,” she said. “By law this must be decided before dawn.”
There was a bustle outside, and Skal was suddenly out of the tent and surrounded by anxious men, Emmar among them. “You have accepted?” he asked.
“I have. How good is this Dadano?”
“Good enough to have killed seventeen men,” Emmar said. Seventeen was a big number. Skal had killed men in battle, but never in a fencing match, though he had excelled at fencing in Bas Erinor. Had he overreached himself? The men continued to press around him.
“Why are you crowding me?” he asked.
“You are her champion. If he kills you she will die. He may do it any way, by bow if he pleases now that you have accepted. Until we get you to the trial ground you are not safe.”
Skal insisted that they went to his tent first, and once there he picked up his shield and dagger, changed into clothes more suited to war. He picked up his breastplate.
“You may not wear armour,” Emmar said. “It is forbidden.”
Skal tossed it down on his bed. “Then let us go to the trial ground,” he said. “And we will see what this man Dadano knows of fencing.”
They made it to the trial ground without incident. It was a flat patch of ground in the valley below Terresh’s pyre, and the smell of smoke lingered here. Eight braziers had been set out and lit, and many more lamps had been brought. Yet again it seemed that none of the common soldiery of Telas were to witness this.
Skal was not completely ignorant of what was going on. He had studied Telan ascension rites as a boy. He knew of the right to challenge, a ritual similar to what went on in Durandar. Indeed, he had been taught that Avilian itself had once had such a right, but it had been abandoned a thousand years ago. He had never expected to take part in such a barbaric entertainment.
Dadano was waiting for him, sword unsheathed, standing easy on one side of the area demarked by the braziers with Crelian by his side. Hestia, too, was waiting. She stood with other lords who Skal supposed supported her claim.
“You are ready to fight, Lord Skal?” It was Crelian who asked. Skal, suddenly abandoned by his
cluster of Telans, stood alone by one of the braziers. He drew his own sword and dagger.
“I am ready,” he replied, and stepped forwards, raising his sword to a guard position, taking a balanced stance. Dadano stepped away from Crelian, moving sideways. It was the simplest opening ploy, trying to turn Skal side on, so he followed, stepping the opposite way, keeping his blade on a true line between them, keeping the angle of his body constant.
Dadano was used to fighting Telans. That might give Skal an advantage. Dadano would have had little need to innovate, and if he went by the book his first move would be to try a quick thrust, a flat out attack, and then withdraw to see how it had fared. He would expect to have the initiative. The standard Telan response, Skal reasoned, would be either to die or, if still alive, to launch a precipitous attack, throwing caution to the winds.
He began to step and feint. A quick step forwards, followed by a feint, then a step to the left. He left some of his false attacks short and others long, almost to full stretch. Dadano adjusted quickly, but the initiative had changed. He was waiting to see what Skal would do next. At the same time he was forced to beat aside each feint as though it was the real thing, because that was the point of step and feint, he was training Dadano to be lazy. If he became lazy he would die.
Skal began to step left and back, widening the gap and forcing Dadano to follow him forwards, but after a couple of steps Dadano reversed, stepping to Skal’s right and forwards deeply, thrusting quickly at what should have been a small opening, but Skal was too good for that, and was quickly inside his opponent’s blade, mounting an attack of his own and Dadano had to jump back to save himself.
It was all a dance. Neither of them expected to score a hit in these opening minutes. They were feeling each other out, getting an idea of how fast and how able each man was compared to the other, and Skal was pleased. Dadano was quick, but no quicker than him, and his forms were imperfect, curved where they should be straight, too low when they should be high.
Skal knew he was going to win. He was the better blade. Dadano knew it, too. Skal could see it in the other man’s eyes, the creased brow, the tension in his hand. But Dadano wasn’t ready to die just yet. He launched a strong attack, followed it up with a second, and when he should have withdrawn he stepped forwards again, close inside Skal’s blade. The move made his own sword useless, and Skal blocked the possibility of a strike with a dagger.
Dadano used the pommel of his sword as a club and hit Skal in the face. It wasn’t a killing blow, not even a serious injury, but it knocked Skal off balance and Dadano attacked again, quick and deadly, meaning to finish it there and then.
If Skal had not fought on the wall, if he had not been injured before and passed, if only briefly, beyond the expectation of life, Dadano’s trick might have worked and he would have died. But Skal could ignore the wound to his face. He could ride the surprise and not lose his composure. He rolled, throwing himself backwards away from the attack, thinking his way through the move, tucking into a ball and unfolding as he came out of it, legs braced and ready with his blade to meet the rushing Dadano.
His blade was perfectly positioned, straight and flat, and his opponent ran onto it, driving it into his own body with the momentum of his charge. Skal deflected Dadano’s blade with his dagger, and avoided the other man’s dagger thrust by twisting his body away to the right. He pulled his sword free and stepped away, watching as the other man fell to his knees.
Dadano stayed there for a moment before falling forwards once more onto his face, dead. It had been a perfect move, an ideal response to the unorthodox. Skal wiped his blades and put them away. He became aware of his small audience again, and he saw something new in their eyes. They had all been afraid of Dadano, or at least knew that they could not face him on their own.
Hestia came to his side.
“It seems that I owe you my life twice over, Lord Skal,” she said. He could see them leading Lord Crelian away to whatever death they deemed appropriate, and it was still not dawn. Skal looked at her. There was a line to be drawn here, he thought. She was a remarkable woman, but he was not hers. He was not her hired killer as Dadano had been Crelian’s.
“Do not put me in that position again, Queen Hestia,” he said. He kept his voice low so that the others could not hear.
She looked at him for a moment, open mouthed. “I see,” she said, and there was more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “I will do my best…”
“I killed Dadano because Crelian was wrong. You are the preferred choice to lead Telas, but I am not your champion. It was a barbaric ritual, and a waste of two men. I am your ally, Queen Hestia, but Crelian was also my ally, as was Dadano. Seth Yarra are my enemy, and I am not yours to bid.”
“I did not think that you were,” she replied.
“Yet you must have known that Crelian would challenge, and that he had Dadano at his side. Who did you think would face him?”
“I hoped that he would not,” she said.
“You used me, Queen Hestia. Do not think that I am too foolish to see it. I will not be used again.” He turned and left her standing among the Braziers and walked back to his tent. The stars were still out and he was tired. He wondered if speaking so plainly was the right thing to do. Narak had called her the mistress of the crooked path, and it was a path that Skal himself had followed. He knew it well and its corners hid nothing from him. He would support her, he had promised that, and he would see her in Telas Alt once more, but he would not trust her again.
* * * *
They were a few hours south along the Perit River when Passerina found them. It had been a strange morning for Skal. It was as though the previous night had been a dream. Nobody mentioned it, not even Emmar who now seemed even more inclined to friendship. Perhaps having seen Skal fight he now saw the colonel’s plea for alliance, to set the captain’s feud aside, as the kindness it had been on Skal’s part.
Whatever the truth, it seemed that the night time blood letting was a secret. It hinted that all such dealings among the mighty were hidden from the common folk. Yet Lord Crelian was gone, and nobody spoke his name.
They rode past Terresh’s pyre, now just ash on a hilltop, and past the place where he had killed Dadano, and there was no sign of the braziers, or that anything had ever taken place there. It was just a quiet, dull valley, and their only witness was a goat that watched the soldiers march past with incurious eyes.
The road was a good one, and they made good time. Hestia’s plan was to march south to the next bridge, cross there, and make directly for Telas Alt. There was no particular haste about their progress. Scouts were out in front and behind, but with close to six thousand men under arms they did not expect to meet any force they could not overwhelm.
Passerina was waiting by the side of the road close to where it bridged a ditch with one of their scouts dismounted nearby. Skal recognised her as soon as he caught sight of her red hair and slight figure. He rode forwards and dismounted.
“Deus, I am pleased that you choose to join us again,” he said.
“You will not be, Lord Skal,” she said.
He wondered at her words, but looking round he saw that he had a few moments only before the others joined them. “Terresh is dead,” he said. “He fell in battle at Greenhow. He walked into an ambush. Hestia has claimed the throne.”
Passerina raised an eyebrow. “There was no challenge?” Apparently she knew Telans better than he did.
“There was,” he replied. “I was forced to answer it.”
“Forced?”
But the others were there, Queen Hestia and her lords, all keen to pay their respects and make themselves known.
“Deus, do you ride with us to Telas Alt?” Hestia asked.
“No, and nor will you if you want to live,” she replied.
“What do you mean?” Hestia was equal parts despair, anger and puzzlement. Skal was just as startled.
“Seth Yarra have landed more men,” Passerina said. �
�It is earlier than Narak expected, but they are here, and even now marching north.”
“How many?” It was the key question. Skal asked it.
“About forty thousand landed. Ten thousand march north. Narak will not let the army support you now that they are here. They will be needed to hold the walls.”
“But their ships were burned,” Hestia protested. “How can they have landed forty thousand men?”
“They have more ships. They have more men.”
Skal understood. They had six thousand. If they were lucky they might find another thousand between here and Telas Alt. A thousand more than that would be a miracle. They could hold Telas Alt with eight thousand, and hold it well enough, but time was the problem, time and food. If Passerina was right, and he was certain that she was, then they would have only a few days before their besiegers arrived, and what food they could gather in that time would not even see them through the winter. Wisdom dictated that they should abandon their goal.